Forbes | 050418
At the end of April 2018, President Trump met with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. It was a very important meeting as President Buhari was the first president from sub-Saharan Africa to visit President Trump at the White House. President Trump was reportedly very interested in the conflict between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. President Trump has caused outcry for the sympathy he has expressed for the Christian farmers targeted by the Fulani herdsmen. However, such criticism may have been ignorant. Indeed, President Trump may not be wrong on the Fulani herdsmen crisis in Nigeria.
Pallbearers carry coffins during the funeral service for people killed during clashes between cattle herders and farmers, on January 11, 2018, in Ibrahim Babangida Square in the Benue state capital Makurdi. Violence between the Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers has claimed thousands of lives across Nigeria’s central states over the past few decades. (Photo credit: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images)
The Fulani herdsmen, also known as the Fulani militia, are a semi-nomadic, pastoralist ethnic group living in the central regions of Nigeria, predominately in the Middle Belt. The majority of the Fulani herdsmen are Muslim. They have clashed with indigenous tribes and local, mainly Christian, farmers over grazing land over the centuries. However, as Open Doors explains, the clashes intensified around the time of the 2011 and 2015 elections, and again earlier this year. The regions most affected by the violence include the areas of Jama’a, Kachia, Kagarko, Kaura and Sanga in southern Kaduna.
The atrocities perpetrated by the Fulani herdsmen include the destruction of houses and churches, as well as the seizure of land and properties belonging to Christian owners. Reports have also emerged of the Fulani herdsmen ‘kidnapping Christian schoolgirls to marry them to Muslim men.’ In its 2015 report, Open Doors lists detailed examples of such targeted attacks. The report rebuts the argument that the clashes were caused by environmental degradation and resulting migration. The report presents a more comprehensive picture incorporating some elements of religious persecution. Indeed, the conflict is extremely complex.